Statutory Interpretation: Databases

USCCAN publishes the text of laws passed by Congress and selected committee reports on bills passed into law. Although it is not a comprehensive list of all the possible documents attached to a particular law, it can be a good starting point because of the importance of committee reports.

Congressional Record has the text of the congressional record from 1985 to present. Available through Westlaw.

All congressional committee reports, including reports on bills that did not become law, beginning with 1990. Available on Westlaw.

Agendas and witness lists for U.S. congressional committee hearings, transcripts of oral statements, and written statements submitted to committees of Congress. Coverage begins with January 1993 and includes increased coverage from January 1996 to present and selected coverage from 1993 to 1996. Available on Westlaw.

The legislative history documents include: Bill Summaries, Committee Reports, and President's Messages.Coverage from 2006 through current;

Provides a vehicle for locating how members of congress voted on what issue. Coverage from 110th through Current Congress. Available through Lexis.

The Committee Report file contains the full text of House and Senate Committee Reports. Coverage from 1981-1982; 1989-current. Available through Lexis.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for the United States Congress. CRS Reports provide non-partisan policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, usually in advance of legislative activity. Available on Lexis.

America: History and Life is the index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With indexing for 1,700 journals from 1964 to present, this database is an important bibliographic reference tool for students and scholars of U.S. and Canadian history. The database also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. Strong English-language journal coverage is balanced by an international perspective on topics and events, including abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages.

American Periodicals Series Online contains page images (full text) of more than 1,100 historic American magazines, journals, and newspapers published between 1740 and 1940, including special interest and general magazines, literary and professional journals, children's and women's magazines and many other historically-significant periodicals.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals. As of January 2000, it contains searchable, full-length, English-language author abstracts (as available) for the new articles entered into the database.

Historical Abstracts covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more - essential for libraries supporting upper-division and graduate research. This authoritative database provides indexing of more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages back to 1955.

Humanities E-Book is an online collection of over 1700 books of high quality, covering most humanities disciplines and area studies. These are works of major importance, from 250 publishers, that remain vital to both scholars and advanced students, and are frequently cited in the literature. HEB now adds approximately 300 books annually to the collection. Titles come from 250 publishers and have been selected by eleven ACLS learned societies or reviewed by a panel of distinguished scholars. HEB currently works with nearly 80 university presses. Humanities E-Book was formerly known as the History E-Book Project.